


Musical Mishap

by vlaplomb



Series: Quartet AU [2]
Category: Purple Hyacinth - Ephemerys & Sophism (Webcomic)
Genre: Crack, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Crack, HAPPY BIRTHDAY IRI, Premarital Eye Contact, SO, hehehh, idk what this is, no premarital rosin sharing, quartet au huh, quartet quartet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-19
Updated: 2021-03-19
Packaged: 2021-03-28 17:34:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30143121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vlaplomb/pseuds/vlaplomb
Summary: Kieran accidentally double books the Ardhalis Quartet, and the main 4 are forced to split up and rehearse for two separate events.
Relationships: Lauren Sinclair/Kieran White, William Hawkes/Kym Ladell, literally any combination of the main 4's friendships
Series: Quartet AU [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2218557
Comments: 7
Kudos: 37





	Musical Mishap

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rainxbow](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rainxbow/gifts).



> HAPPY BIRTHDAY B I LOVE YOU 😼 ENJOY BEING OLD OR WHATEVER I'm still older HAH but you're still my mom
> 
> Anyway Iri plays the violin and enjoyed the first quartet fic so I thought I might as well make another installment for her >:) I hope you like it

“So remind me: whose brilliant idea was it to put Kieran in charge again?”

Kym sighed, patting Lauren on the head with the end of her bow. “I’m pretty sure it was his own.”

“Oh, well that makes sense,” she replied, tossing the calendar down on the table. “I didn’t think you or Will were capable of making such a stupid mistake.”

“Ouch, darling,” Kieran said as he twirled his own bow around his finger. “I didn’t think you were capable of being so cold.”

“Make that your tenth mistake of today.”

“Lauren, what’s going on?” Will asked, swiveling on the piano bench to face them. “I still don’t understand why you’re...any more upset with Kieran than any other day.”

“Well.” Glaring in Kieran’s direction, Lauren jumped off the edge of the stage, picking up her cello from where it rested on its side. “This genius double-booked us. Next week we’re supposed to be at a wedding in the 8th precinct and a ball on the other side of town on the same evening.”

“Wait.” Kym leapt off the stage as well, clutching her viola by the scroll and pointing it towards lauren. “If you can hear lies-” she panned the viola over to Kieran, standing unassumingly off to the side- “then you should have a special power too. Is it teleportation, by any chance?”

Groaning, Kieran shook his head. Having set his bow aside, he was instead tossing a brick of rosin from hand to hand restlessly. “I’m just an ordinary guy.”

“Well then.” Kym pointed her viola back at Lauren. “Then why on  _ earth _ did you ask him to join this ensemble?”

“He’s the only violinist I know other than Bella.” Lauren shivered. “She hit me in the back of the head with a trumpet once, you know. I wasn’t right again for weeks.”

Kieran’s eyebrow curled upwards into a question. “Bella hit you with a-”

“Shut up! You’re distracting me,” Lauren hissed at him, picking the calendar back up to wave it in his flinching face. “We are double-booked and we need to figure out a way to let one of our gigs down easy without destroying our reputation.”

Will sighed, rolling his head in his hands on the piano on stage. “You say as if our reputation hasn’t already been destroyed from Ladell’s little ‘Don’t Stop Believing mishap at-”

“Shh. We don’t speak of that.” Kym strode up to Lauren, placing a hand on her shoulder. “I think I have an idea to fix this.”

“I’m all ears,” Lauren muttered.

“Let’s split up! Will and I can go to one event, and you and Kieran can go to the other.”

“I like that idea,” Lauren started, her eyes narrowing slightly, “except you take Kieran. I’ll take Will.”

“But there are no good pieces for cello and viola,” Kym wailed, tugging at her cellist friend’s sleeve. “Viola and piano, though? Sure. Cello and violin? I bet.”

“She makes a fair point.” Kieran took a step towards them, dropping his rosin juggling to the side. “I think Kym has a perfectly good solution.”

“What do you think, Will?”

He picked his head up, glancing back and forth between his three quartet mates. “I think...that while Lauren and I would be a much more productive duo, the gig that ended up with Kym and Kieran as their entertainment would have wished we had just cancelled on them.”

“Rude!” the two scoffed in unison, Kym chucking her cleaning cloth at his face.

He caught it cleanly with one hand, turning to face Lauren. “So each gig needs one sane person.”

“I suppose you’re right.” Lauren glanced at Kieran, who was making an attempt at playing his violin upside down while Kym, completely drawn away from the conversation she’d started, was watching him with rapture.

“I’m so sorry, Lauren.”

“Oh, don’t apologize, Will! It’s Kieran’s fault we’re in this predicament.”

“No, not for that,” he said quietly, tipping his head toward their chaotic counterparts. “I’m taking Kym.”

“Oh, so now I’m preferable to Kieran,” Kym sang, snatching the rosin out of the air. Kieran stared past her at their quartet mates, a dejected frown crossing his face “I see how it is, Willame.”

Huffing, Lauren picked up her instrument and stalked over to Kieran, a book of sheet music pinned under her arm. “Let’s find some practice rooms.” He trailed closely behind her, and with a shrug, Kym and Will joined them in their pursuit of practice space.

“Watch your bow,” Will hissed, swatting in the air. Kym’s bow waved back and forth like an old-fashioned metronome as she walked, occasionally sideswiping his cheekbone or nose. With a chuckle, Kym made sure to swat him with it the next time it came his way.

“That could break, you know,” Lauren called behind her. Kym hadn’t even realized the cellist had turned around.

“I don’t think Will’s shoulder is chiseled enough to snap my bow-”

Will bristled. “If you don’t quit it, I’ll snap it for you.”

“Hey!”

“Here are two open practice rooms - right beside each other, too!” Kieran called out, gesturing grandly towards two cracked doors. “It’s a miracle!”

He and Kym took one look at each other and burst into the Hallelujah Chorus.

“Hopefully I’ll see you again,” Will muttered to Lauren, taking Kym and her viola by the arm and dragging her into the closest practice room.

“Good luck,” Lauren replied, taking one look at Kieran still dancing by himself in the hallway and opting not to take him by the arm as Will had. Tossing her hair over her shoulder, she half ran into the practice room, not wanting to be seen with the idiot.

“Hey, wait up!” Kieran yelled, barely slipping in as she shut the door.

It was about to be a long ass afternoon for the Ardhalis String Quartet.

____________

“Kym, for the last time: we are  _ not _ playing anything that was written in the last century.”

Kym stuck out her tongue at Will, dropping her  _ 101 Pop Songs for Viola _ book on the ground with a  _ plat _ . “Hey! How about the Bartok concerto? That was written in the last century.”

“I mean, sure, would you like to--”

“No, I’m just saying.”

“Kym,” Will groaned again, letting his head fall into his hands on the piano. “We have to pick something. If you don’t, I’ll pick something for solo piano.”

“Solo-” Kym scoffed. “Well, then what would I do? Stand there awkwardly while you play?”

“No, you just wouldn’t come,” Will said simply, turning away and dropping his hands onto the keyboard, playing the starting notes of an etude he’d committed to memory some time ago.

“Willame! I’m appalled!” Kym yelped, rushing over to grab his shoulders dramatically. “You know you need me--”

“Actually, I don’t--”

“What event are we even covering?”

"A wedding."

"Okay! Then let's pick something that we could play at a wedding. Something… happy."

"So not Hindemith," Will said drily.

Kym tipped her head back and laughed, with Will watching her curiously. "More like Vivaldi. Let's steal some random violin concerto."

A grin crept its way unbidden across his face. "Vivaldi is nice."

Kym picked up her instrument, opening one of her folders. "I'm pretty sure I have one in here that I've played before."

"Perfect."

"You agreed with me!" Kym patted his head, to which Will's eyes widened. "Character development."

"Uh huh." He cleared the music stand. "Just give me the accompaniment part."

Once Kym had distributed the sheet music, Will counted off and they started to rehearse. After several false starts - Kym had forgotten to tune and her arpeggios sounded mixolydian, she gave Will the wrong sheet music to start with, and Will counted off by four instead of three - they were finally playing in sync, two musicians instead of two coworkers at odds.

Kym’s mind wandered as she played, feeling the notes of the lower register in her chest. Biting her lip, she brought herself back into focus again, reigning in her thoughts to pour all of her energy into a sweeping crescendo. She let herself linger at the height of the phrase, relishing in the extra vibrato. As she completed that progression and began the next, a couple of wrong notes sounded to her left.

_ Just keep going, _ she thought. Knowing Will, it would be best if she failed to acknowledge where he slipped.

After a slight diminuendo, Kym arrived at a part she knew by heart. At that, she let go of her grip on the music again, letting her eyes drift away from the smattering of notes on the page. She just wanted to see what Will was doing, to make sure he was getting along just fine--

Sapphire hued eyes stared back at her.

Her heart jumped out of its place. That was about the last thing she expected. Her left hand fingers tripped over themselves, barely able to keep up. Muttering profanities, Kym stopped her bow’s movement, pinching her instrument between her shoulder and her jaw as she pretended to examine her left hand.

“Sorry! Sorry, that was completely my fault,” Will said, pausing his own playing and staring at the wall.

“What do you mean? That was definitely all me,” Kym scoffed. “What could you have done to make my hand just spasm, after all?”

“Sorry, I thought--”

“Don’t apologize.”

Groaning, Will began to randomly tap out a melody with his right hand. Sensing the tension, Kym set down her instrument on top of the piano, taking a seat on the bench so she was sitting next to him, but facing in the opposite direction. Will’s plinking rolled to a halt. “I didn’t mean to make you nervous by watching you. You weren’t doing anything wrong.”

“It’s okay! You didn’t--” Kym paused, furrowing her brow. “Wait, if I wasn’t doing anything wrong, why were you watching me?”

A beat of silence passed between them. Will looked down at his keyboard. “You look happy when you play for real, you know. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Kym turned to meet his eyes, and they made eye contact again for just a moment. “Good to know,” she said with a chuckle. “Whenever my mom takes a picture of me during a concert, I always have this horrendous resting bitch face-”

Her breath caught as Will’s fingertips brushed against her cheek. For the first time maybe that day, she couldn’t quite find the rest of her words.

“You know, I didn’t really feel like practicing today,” Will breathes, almost asking a question.

“We could,” Kym swallowed roughly, “we could always do that another day.”

Will dipped his head just ever so slightly, letting his lips meet hers - just a chaste kiss. As he pulled away, Kym saw him reach for his phone in his peripheral.

“What are you doing?”

“Viola and piano recording,” he said softly, setting his phone aside as the music began to play. “Just so no one barges in.”

Kym didn’t know what to say, so she just grinned, resting a hand on Will’s as he wrapped his arm around her side, bumping her against the piano.

She knew when their lips brushed again that she’d chosen the right duet partner.

________

"This piece is boring."

Lauren groaned. "Violin snob- shut up and play."

"You're so cold, you could crack my instrument," Kieran replied morosely. Narrowing his eyes, he busted out the motif from "Toxic".

"Mhm, and you're so funny. Let's take this from the top."

"Can't we work on the fast movement?"

"No, we need to work on phrasing."

"Says the cellist who can't handle one measly run."

“Kieran. Listen to the other two practicing in the next room over.” He tilted his head, and Lauren watched as he soaked up the music wafting through the wall and into their own practice room. The viola wove a lovely dark melody into the air, with the piano serving as a delicate echo for the section they were working on. “Doesn’t the competitive part of you want to be better than them? Or at least make some sort of progress?”

“Wait-” Kieran pressed his ear to the wall, holding his bow and instrument at the scroll in his other hand. “That isn’t them.”

“Well then who is it?”

He set his instrument down on the vacant piano bench and hung his bow on the music stand beside him. “It’s Kim freaking Kardashian.”

“You mean Kashkashian, idiot,” Lauren retorted, watching as he threw open the door and started down the hallway.  _ Wait, that still doesn’t make sense. _ “Wait, what the hell are you doing?”

She raced out of the practice room after him, reaching him just as he cracked open the unlocked practice room door. Ducking beneath his arm to peer in, she gasped.

“William Hawkes!” The pianist practically jumped off of Kym, standing from the piano bench and shutting off the recording that was playing from his phone. The silence left Lauren’s ears ringing. Kym flopped backwards on the piano bench, staring upside down at Lauren and Kieran who were both still watching Will dumbfoundedly.

“You could knock next time,” Will mumbled, eyeing Kieran as he fixed the top button on his shirt.

Kieran grinned wickedly. “And miss this- oW!” Lauren removed her elbow from Kieran’s ribs with a grimace.

“When did this-” Lauren gestured towards Kym and Will- “happen?” She smirked at Kym. “And why didn’t I hear about it?”

“I don’t like her,” Will said quickly, backing against the wall as though distancing himself from her would make it more clear, even after they had walked in on them making out. “She’s insufferable.”

“If kissing people is what you do when you hate them, then I wonder why Lauren hasn’t kissed me yet,” Kieran said, glancing at her. He was met with a glare. “Ahahah.”

“Did you guys get any practicing done?” Lauren asked.

“Did you?” Kym replied, glancing between them.

“No,” Kieran said, to which Lauren elbowed him again. “Ow- I mean, we weren’t making out or anything, just arguing-”

“So were we,” Will said.

“We’ll let you get back to  _ arguing  _ then.” Kieran dropped the door, nearly missing Lauren still leaning through. They fell into step beside each other, silent as they traipsed back to the practice room.

"After you," Kieran said haughtily, opening the door for Lauren. They both wandered back into the practice room. Before Lauren had the chance to pick up her cello, she heard a faint, tinny strain of the duet they had just been practicing from behind her.

She whipped around to face Kieran, glaring at the phone in his hand. "Don't even think about it," she snapped at him, wrapping her hand around the neck of her instrument. "We are going to play this movement and we are going to play it right."

Pressing his lips into a line, Kieran nodded, shutting off the recording and picking up his violin again.

It was still going to be a long afternoon for half of the Ardhalis Quartet.

**Author's Note:**

> I have an in person quartet rehearsal coming up at some point so y'all know what that means
> 
> MORE MATERIAL
> 
> HAPPY BIRTHDAY AGAIN IRIIIIII I LAUV YOU


End file.
